While previous waves of immigrants from Europe and Asia have generally assimilated quickly, this American passage has been more problematic for the Hispanic newcomers.

Churches dating back to the eastern Europeans who settled the South Ward after the Civil War are snug by new convenience stores opened by Hispanic and Asian newcomers.

They witnessed newer immigrants - Asians, but also black and Hispanic newcomers from the Caribbean and South America - beginning to pass them by.

Hispanic newcomers are seen learning English.

Over the years, Chelsea absorbed Irish, Italian, black and Hispanic newcomers.

In recent months, Mr. Jimenez shared an apartment with his brother, Manuel, and Manuel's wife and two children, in a two-family house on Sussex Avenue, where many Hispanic newcomers settled in the 1990's.

Long Island's face is changing as the Hispanic and Asian newcomers arrive.

But the practice has become particularly pronounced among Hispanic newcomers here in the South, where a huge wave of migration in the 1990's has created large pockets of Latino culture where there had once been none.

But many other Hispanic newcomers are bilingual and bicultural professionals.

That diversity, though, was reflected in only a few of the black and Hispanic newcomers who were nominated, suggesting that, for the immediate future, the Council will look different but that changes in its makeup may be merely cosmetic.